Tokyo

19 days in Tokyo

August 2015

So the original idea was to repost my blog from the time I spent in Tokyo and the stuff I didn't get to post due to Tumblr restrictions. But it really is a chore I just can't be bothered with so I am going to post everything in a different way photos and video's and stuff I recall.

other districts

akihabara idol land

Akihabara (秋葉原) is a district in the Chiyoda ward of Tokyo, Japan. The name Akihabara is a shortening of Akibagahara (秋葉が原, "autumn leaf field"), which ultimately comes from Akiba (秋葉), named after a fire-controlling deity of a firefighting shrine built after the area was destroyed by a fire in 1869.​Akihabara gained the nickname Akihabara Electric Town (秋葉原電気街Akihabara Denki Gai) shortly after World War II for being a major shopping center for household electronic goods and the post-war black market. Nowadays, Akihabara is considered by many to be an otaku cultural center and a shopping district for video games, anime, manga, and computer goods. Icons from popular anime and manga are displayed prominently on the shops in the area, and numerous maid cafés are found throughout the district.

The main area of Akihabara is located on a street just west of Akihabara Station, where most of the major shops are situated. Most of the electronics shops are just west of the station, and the anime and manga shops and the cosplay cafés are north of them.

HistoryThe area that is now Akihabara was once near a city gate of Edo and served as a passage between the city and northwestern Japan. This made the region a home to many craftsmen and tradesmen, as well as some low class samurai. One of Tokyo's frequent fires destroyed the area in 1869, and the people decided to replace the buildings of the area with a shrine called Chinkasha (now known as Akiba Shrine (秋葉神社Akiba Jinja), meaning fire extinguisher shrine, in an attempt to prevent the spread of future fires. The locals nicknamed the shrine Akiba after the deity that could control fire, and the area around it became known as Akibagahara and later Akihabara. After Akihabara Station was built in 1888, the shrine was moved to the Taitō wardwhere it still resides up to the present day.Between stores in AkihabaraSince its opening in 1890, Akihabara Station became a major freight transit point, which allowed a vegetable and fruit market to spring up in the district. Then, in the 1920s, the station saw a large volume of passengers after opening for public transport, and after World War II, the black market thrived in the absence of a strong government. This disconnection of Akihabara from government authority has allowed the district to grow as a market city and given rise to an excellent atmosphere for entrepreneurship. In the 1930s, this climate turned Akihabara into a future-oriented market region specializing in household electronics, such as washing machines, refrigerators, televisions, and stereos, earning Akihabara the nickname "Electric Town".As household electronics began to lose their futuristic appeal in about the 1980s, the shops of Akihabara shifted their focus to home computers at a time when they were only used by specialists and hobbyists. This new specialization brought in a new type of consumer, computer nerds or otaku. The market in Akihabara naturally latched onto their new customer base that was focused on anime, manga, and video games. The connection between Akihabara and otaku has survived and grown to the point that the region is now known worldwide as a center for otaku culture, and some otaku even consider Akihabara to be a sacred place.

Otaku cultureMaids promoting maid cafés near Akihabara StationThe influence of otaku culture has shaped Akihabara's businesses and buildings to reflect the interests of otaku and gained the district worldwide fame for its distinctive imagery. Akihabara tries to create an atmosphere as close as possible to the game and anime worlds of customers' interest. The streets of Akihabara are covered with anime and manga icons, and cosplayers line the sidewalks handing out advertisements, especially for maid cafés. The idol group AKB48, one of Japan's highest selling contemporary musical acts, runs its own theater in Akihabara, from which the group's name is derived.Naruto cosplayer attracting customers for a Manga and Anime shopRelease events, special events, and conventions in Akihabara give anime and manga fans frequent opportunities to meet the creators of the works they follow so closely and strengthen the connection between the region and otaku culture. The design of many of the buildings serves to create the sort of atmosphere that draws in otaku. Architects design the stores of Akihabara to be more opaque and closed to reflect the general desire of many otaku to live in their anime worlds rather than display their interests to the world at large.​Akihabara's role as a free market has also allowed a large amount of amateur work to find a passionate audience in the otaku who frequent the area. Doujinshi (amateur manga) has been growing in Akihabara since the 1970s when publishers began to drop manga that were not ready for large markets.

Yep have been here will post more on that later it was an experience and not what I was expecting.

AKB48 (pronounced A.K.B. Forty-eight) is a Japanese idol girl group named after the Akihabara (Akiba for short) area in Tokyo, where the group's theater is located, and its original roster of 48 members. As of December 2015, the group has expanded to include more than 130 members aged from their early teens to their mid-20s. AKB48's producer, Yasushi Akimoto, wanted to form a girl group with its own theater (unlike pop groups performing occasional concerts and seen on television) and performing daily so fans could always see them live. This "idols you can meet" concept includes teams which can rotate performances and perform simultaneously at several events and "handshake" events, where fans can meet group members. Akimoto has expanded the AKB48 concept to severalsister groups in China, Japan and Indonesia, with upcoming groups announced for the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand.​The group is one of the highest-earning musical performers in Japan, with 2013 sales of over $128 million, and has been characterized as a social phenomenon. As of December 2015 the group has sold over 41 million records, including over 36 million singles and over 5 millon albums. AKB48 is the highest selling musical act in Japan in terms of singles sold and the highest by a girl group. AKB48's twenty-nine latest singles have topped the Oricon Weekly Singles Chart, with a record twenty-three singles selling over a million copies; their highest selling single, "Sayonara Crawl", sold over 1.95 million in 2013. In 2010 "Beginner" and "Heavy Rotation" placed first and second, respectively, on the list of Japan's best-selling singles for the year. In all consecutive years since then, AKB48's singles have occupied the top four or five spots of the Oricon Yearly Singles Chart

Morning Musume '16 (モーニング娘。 '16Mōningu Musume '16.), formerly simply Morning Musume (モーニング娘。Mōningu Musume.?) and sometimes referred to as Momusu (モー娘。Mōmusu.), is a Japanese female idol group, holding the second highest overall single sales (of a female group) on the Oricon charts as of February 2012, with the Oricon record of most top ten singles with an amount of 50, and they have sold over 21 million copies in Japan alone.

Morning Musume was formed in 1997 by rock singer-songwriter turned record producer Tsunku, who later composed a vast majority of the group's songs over the decade. They are the lead group of Hello! Project that specialises in upbeat, pop-oriented music coupled with dance performance. The group produced several splinter groups, and often collaborates with other Hello! Project acts, including Country Musume, Berryz Kobo, Cute, Melon Kinenbi, and v-u-den. The group's name can be translated as "Morning Girls" or "Morning Daughters"; as the name suggests, it consists of members mostly in their late adolescence and early 20s. The average age of the group members has remained more or less unchanged since its original formation because the group maintains a "school-like" system for their continuous line-up changes, with older members "graduating" and new, usually younger, members selected from nationwide auditions admitted to the group almost annually.

Probably the most insane group ever and this is a more normal song for them!

Dempagumi.inc (でんぱ組.inc) is a Japanese pop idol group under the label MEME TOKYO. The group formed in 2008 performing daily on Akihabara's DearStage live bar. In December that same year they released their debut single, "Mirror Magic?", under the indies label DearStage Records as Dempagumi (でんぱ組). Then in 2010 they released their major debut, the joint single "Kiss+kiss de Owaranai / Star☆tin'", under the label Lantis.​In 2011, they changed labels once again to MEME TOKYO before releasing the single "Future Diver".- See more at: http://www.generasia.com/wiki/Dempagumi.inc#sthash.If2TtsxA.dpuf

AKB48 you probably got why they are posted in the Akihabara section as for Hello Project and Dempagumi Inc you may not be too sure well it will all be explained later.

​Now some of you may be thinking Depagumi Inc more insane that Crayon Pop? ​Well if anything Crayon Pop have been more compared to Momomiro Clover Z who just happen to be the most popular Idol peoples choice 2015. But anyway stop distracting me from the point it's an argument for another day and for the idol page as I said more explanation on all this to follow.

Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed, released as Akiba's Trip 2(アキバズトリップ2Akibazu Torippu 2) in Japan, is a 2013 adventure video game for the PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and Microsoft Windows by Acquire. It is the sequel to Akiba's Trip on the PlayStation Portable.

Set in Akihabara, the shopping area has been invaded by creatures known as "Synthisters" who prey on the patrons of Akihabara like vampires, feasting on their social energy and will to live. These enemies can only be stopped by direct exposure to sunlight, meaning that the player is required to defeat these vampires by violently stripping off their clothes and exposing them to sunlight. The storyline revolves around a conspiracy behind the Magaimono organization that the player explores. Within the game, there will be over 130 real life Akihabara shops that the player is able to visit.

Momoiro Clover Z (Z is officially pronounced as /zɛd/ on international activities) (ももいろクローバーZMomoiro Kurōbā Zetto) is a Japanese idol group. It is commonly abbreviated as Momoclo (ももクロMomokuro) or MCZ.

They are the first female group to hold a solo concert at National Olympic Stadium. The group often provides the theme music for Japanese famous animations: Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Pokémon and so on.

The five members are known for energetic performances, incorporating elements of ballet, gymnastics, and action movies. In 2015, they collaborated with the American hard rock band KISS. (It was the first time for KISS to release a collaboration CD with another artist.)

In 2013, it was the fourth highest music artist by total sales revenue in Japan, with over ¥5.2 billion. During 2014, about 486,000 people attended their live concerts, which was the highest record of all female musicians in Japan.Momoiro Clover Z has been ranked as the most popular female idol group from 2013 to 2015

This was a band playing at the yoyo championship you may have noticed in some of the pictures above the venue was a market under the Sumtomo Fudosan Akihabara and the band were just playing to the street. The market is unusual as it is closed off at night with these walls they just pull open and closed it takes about 10 minutes or so and the market seems to have different themes in this case the yoyo championship which is a big thing among teen Japanese boys.

Hello Akihabara

Now I wasn't aware there was a Hello Project store in Akihabara until I stumbled across it while exploring taking photo's and there it was as you can see in some of the gallery shots. Filming and taking pic's in stores in Tokyo is not an easy thing to do so it's always best to asked before you start. It's on the 5th or maybe 6th floor of the Tam Tam hobby shop, Why there I have no idea? but the whole floor is dedicated to Hello Project. Well to be honest it's more dedicated to Morning Musume than anything which I guess is what most fans want. There is a small video section as you come out the lift and then the dresses along the wall by the windows. Next to that is a concert section where you can sit and watch extracts from concerts and chant along with fans, and they do like a good chant Japanese fans. then in the main room is the pay desk and assistance and all kinds of stuff from singed pics key rings mouse mats posters stickers pages but again oddly only a few t-shirts. I was hoping to find Ai Takahashi's graduation dvd here but as I said the video section is very small and it wasn't there, however I did find it in Tower Records in Shibuya but more on that in the Shibuya section coming soonish.

Oh yes the famous akb48 cafe & shop or shops!

I did go to the cafe that night and no the t-shirt didn't work as a discount and I did do a video after eating there so will have a look for that. The food was good really good the service was a bit strange the staff are dressed like AKB members and seem to feel a little embarrassed about their outfits but are very pleasant when engaging with you. There are two parts the theatre section is very, very loud and full it shows sections from shows and MV's and the cafe section is well like a cafe it has drawings on the walls by the girls and stuff written on the table tops by them also. The menu is the members favourite dishes and there are a fare few to chose from I had a pineapple hawaiian thing chosen by Takamina and it was really good, really, really damn good she has very good test in food. I did have a desert but can't remember what it was now? but I do remember liking it and whatever it was I drank too. And yes I was hungover after the Volleyball game the night before.

And this is who the long queue was for Nagisa Shibuya of NMB48 team B2 it was her 19th birthday on August 25th 2015 and she was doing a handshake and excepting gifts and all that stuff. I didn't go see her but do have a t-shirt from the event which is why I have the dates as it's all over the damn shirt. Oh yeah and I got to do a lucky dip for a keyring which is how you got to go to the handshake event if you managed to pick her keyring which I didn't I got Miru Shiroma NMB48 team M. (see below)

Just a minute or two by foot from the Electric Town exit of Akihabara Station, you will immediately see the pink LED text that runs on top along the whole length of the AKB48 Café and Shop. There are two sections: one is a small shop where fans of the girl group can find stationery items, cookies in cans and boxes with the group’s photos, flag-lets and banners bearing the faces of each member of the group, and even a huge screen showing the group’s performances in rotation. On the other side is a food shop where you can drop by to get ice cream, pies, cookies and drinks, among others.

There are actually 3 shops one either side of the cafe and a third on the 7th floor just before you go up to the AKB48 theatre. Each of the shops does something different in the items you can buy there. The most expensive of the three would be the one at the theatre but the goods there are a little more unusual and you won't get them anywhere else thats a fact.